Free to Love
by wanderingquill21
Summary: It's a few years after the war, and, after failed attempts at restoring her parents' memories and a disastrous relationship with Ron, Hermione has left the magical world and her friends behind. Starting anew in the Muggle world, Hermione has buried herself in her studies. But a chance encounter with someone she thought dead opens her eyes to possibilities she'd never dared imagine.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters, etc, etc.

 **Notes:  
** \- Hermione/Snape pairing  
\- Made for the plot challenge issued by Rovigo32, all the creativity credits there

There was nothing unusual about the bushy-haired girl staying in the library late into the night; the other library-goers thought nearly nothing of it, going about their business as usual—searching for books, using the computers for research, studying ancient-looking texts—but always leaving at a reasonable hour, an hour long before the first rays of the rising sun peeked over the scuffed brick building. But not the girl. No one could say how late she stayed; library staff had long since given up trying to kick her out when the building closed, especially since unusual memory losses tended to occur when they did—though they knew not why.

They also weren't sure what class her research was for. Though she grabbed books similar to the other students occasionally to finish projects clearly intended for the classes they shared, the library staff had often brushed by the girl during her many long stays and spotted her reading books on memory and the brain; they'd have thought her a neuroscience student except that neuroscience studies only required one semester on memory, and the girl had been sifting through those books for far longer than that. It had become almost a game amongst the staff, trying to figure out what drove the girl to study so hard for a subject she wasn't taking—but so far, there were no winners. The girl remained a mystery, and an impossible one for them to solve, as well—for though they couldn't have known this, the girl was a witch, a graduate of a school they'd never heard of, an outcast of a society they'd never know.

* * *

Hermione Granger closed the enormous leather-bound book with a loud thud, sighing. Another few hours wasted on a book that held no answers for her. Glancing around the library, she realized it was entirely empty, all the lights save the ones directly above her shut off for the night. She leaned her head back until it rested against the cold metal bar of the chair's back, covering her eyes with her hand tiredly to block out the brightness of the buzzing fluorescent light above her.

It had been several years since the war, long enough that Hermione was having difficulty keeping track of the exact timeframe; not that it mattered all that much to her anymore, submerged in the Muggle world as she was. Nobody knew about either the war or her role in it here, and Hermione preferred it that way. She didn't want the hero worship of people who believed she and her friends had saved the wizarding world, or the death threats of those whose perfect lives had been turned around by the reforming of pureblood-friendly laws. As surprising as it might've seemed to other wizards, Hermione far preferred the anonymity of the Muggle world—although that anonymity was not the only reason she'd left.

Storing the books she'd brought with her in her bag, she returned the useless leather-bound book to the shelf. She slung her bag over her shoulder, flicking off the light above her and striding quickly out of the eerily empty building. A pink-hued sunrise greeted her, its brightness dimmed only by the reluctantly fading moon and a few purple storm clouds drifting lazily across the sky, threatening but not unleashing a torrent of rain. Hermione blinked in surprise, a wry smile crossing her face at the thought of Harry and Ron's expressions if they knew how very late she'd stayed for her research. But Harry and Ron were precisely what she _didn't_ want to think about, and she turned purposefully back to the door she'd just exited. After a quick, furtive glance about, she drew her wand from inside the light jacket she always wore inside the chilly library, muttering a quiet, "Collopurtus." Hearing the lock click, she gave a satisfied nod, storing her wand away and turning to begin the solitary walk back to her apartment.

She could have, of course, Apparated, but the walk was a short one, and usually Hermione appreciated the chance it gave her to think. But tonight—well, this morning—Hermione found her mind focusing on the friends she hadn't seen since only a few months after the war had ended. Picturing Harry's eternally messy hair and Ron's infuriating grin, she felt a pang of sadness; she did miss them, despite it being her own choice to cut off contact—but it was far easier this way. For the end of the war had not brought the blissful peace and tranquility Hermione had hoped for; instead, it brought with it a whole new range of problems, ones Hermione had half-anticipated, but had been unable to counter until after Voldemort was dead.

Helpless to stop her mind from wandering where it pleased, Hermione recalled the days following the war. She and Ron had tracked down her parents quickly enough—Hermione had known the approximate location of where she'd sent them, and she knew _them_ well enough to know where they'd go from there. But finding her parents had been the easy part, as Hermione now knew all too well. Her mind replayed the moment as if it were yesterday.

Her parents had been understandably frightened when two people that they saw as complete strangers burst into their home, waving sticks of wood and using nonsensical terminology. They'd cowered in the corner of the room as Hermione and Ron had tried to soothe them with incomprehensible explanations, until Hermione finally decided the best way to calm their hysterics was likely to restore their memories. She remembered precisely how she'd raised her wand, performing the spell that should have fixed the memory-altering spell she'd previously used on them, and how she'd known something wasn't right even before her father had started yelling. She remembered her mother's cry of horror as Hermione had turned her wand on her, hoping desperately that perhaps her failure to fix her father's memory had just been a fluke, hoping she could at least have her mother back so they could figure out together how to help her father. She remembered how she'd turned to Ron, helplessness and fear in her eyes when she'd failed, and how he'd held her and whispered reassurances.

She remembered a month later when he'd stormed out of the apartment they shared with her parents while she researched a cure, shouting about how she was so obsessed with her parents' memories that her life no longer held a place for him. She remembered how she'd cried for weeks after, no closer to fixing her parents' memories and having lost the man she thought truly cared for her. She'd moved with her parents out of the wizarding world soon after, slipping away in the middle of the night and leaving no return address. She had no desire to see him again in the near future.

Sometimes she wondered if she should reach out to Harry—after all, he'd done nothing wrong. He'd tried to be supportive, busy as he was with his job as an Auror and his fledgling romance with Ginny—though she supposed it was no longer so new now. But each time the thought crossed her mind, she recalled the furious look on Ron's face and knew that, no matter how tight a lid Harry tried to keep on it, Ron would end up finding out. She wasn't sure if she was more afraid of the idea that he'd try to come find her, or that he wouldn't try at all and had ceased caring for her entirely.

She tried to brush away the thoughts, thinking instead of the research she'd been looking into lately. Hermione had tried all sorts of spells and potions and remedies to help her parents. It wasn't easy to do—despite the fact that they now believed her about the wizarding world having seen it firsthand when she took them to St. Mungo's, they were still unsure about her as their daughter. She supposed it did seem incredible that their entire lives were a fabrication of her own devise, and she knew they could only be patient with her for so long. But the more she tried to unravel the string that bound the false memories to their minds so tightly, the more tangled it became, and it was her greatest fear that one day she'd come back to their apartment to find them gone, hiding from the crazy girl who'd brainwashed them into believing insane things all these years. It broke her heart every time to see the wary lack of recognition in their eyes when they looked at her.

Sighing, she rounded the corner to enter their apartment complex when she caught a glimpse of movement from the corner over her eye. Turning her head slightly, she glanced across the street to the alley between two buildings. Her eyes widened as they took in the unmistakable shape of a cloak billowing as the person wearing it hurried away, smoothly starting to disappear into the shadows cast by the blocky building. Glancing up a few stories at the window behind which she knew her parents would soon be waking, Hermione was caught in a moment of indecision; she wanted to check on her parents, if only to make sure they hadn't run, but she couldn't deny that the mysterious figure had piqued her curiosity. What were the chances that someone from the magical community would come here, a location she'd selected precisely because it was far from any place belonging to the magical world? No, the person was likely here because of her; but she hadn't had contact with anyone from the wizarding community for years, and she wondered how it was they could have found her.

Her curiosity was too great to be denied, and she left her bag on the doorstep—she'd already gone through the books inside hundreds of times and her wallet was in her pocket. The bag would have unnecessarily slowed her down, and she needed every second she could get in pursuit of the cloaked figure. She hurried after him—for the slight glimpse had been enough to tentatively identify the figure as male—crossing the street and following him into the shadows beyond.

The morning sun provided little help in her pursuit, its low angle contributing to the long shadows she wove through as she followed the dark cloak around corners and down alleys, taking a maze-like path that soon left Hermione dizzy and uncertain of her location in relation to her apartment. The scuffed bricks were soon replaced by more and more worn-down ones, faded and blackened by filth and muck, and Hermione knew she was following the man to the less reputable part of town. But still, she continued. She had extensive knowledge of both defensive and offensive magic left over from being on the run with Harry and Ron—knowledge that, while rusty, would still serve her should the figure turn out to wish her harm—so she did not regard the figure with as much wariness as she perhaps should have, though she did draw her wand from her jacket once again.

She only barely managed to keep the cloaked man in sight, often catching a glimpse of the trailing black material disappearing around a corner just as she'd rounded the previous one, hastening after as quickly as she could; but the figure always stayed slightly ahead of her, and Hermione was beginning to feel the fatigue of a long night in the library setting in. She needed to end this chase, and quickly.

Rounding the corner, she saw that she'd entered a particularly long alley, and the figure was fully visible as he hurried down it. Abruptly stopping, Hermione pointed her wand at the cloaked figure, wordlessly casting the Trip Jinx and allowing herself a triumphant grin at the gratifying skidding noise followed by a light thunk as the long form of the man toppled over.

Hermione made her way over to the man, a cautious note of hesitation in her steps as he pushed himself to his feet, the set of his shoulders betraying his resignation to facing her. He kept his face turned away from her as she approached, though she thought he seemed somehow familiar. Getting closer, she could see the dark cloak wasn't the only reason he seemed to disappear into the shadows; his hair was jet black with an oily texture to it that gleamed even in the dim lighting. As she drew closer, she noted the man's slim frame, catching a glimpse of pale skin, and her eyes widened in recognition before she even met the man's deep, dark eyes.

"Snape?" she gasped.


End file.
